In the past, several devices for trimming and hedging fruit trees and other tall trees and plants have been developed. Generally, these devices have included a cutting arm which is vertically movable in order to reach various portions of the trees to be trimmed. Some of the prior devices have included cutting arms which are also pivotable with respect to arm supporting means to further enable cutting of other portions of the tree. Many types of blades and saws have been included in such devices. U.S. Pat. No. 3,597,908, for example, issued on Aug. 10, 1971, to W. A. Schaefer and entitled TREE-PRUNING APPARATUS, includes a rectilinear arm having reciprocating cutting blades. U.S. Pat. No. 2,940,486 issued on June 14, 1960, to J. F. Whitmore and entitled PRUNING APPARATUS, includes a cutting arm having a plurality or gang of spaced, rotating, circular saw blades to provide the cutting action. Such prior devices have suffered from several disadvantages.
First, the prior-known trimming devices have generally been unable to smoothly and evenly cut and hedge the tree branches and other foliage. Especially with fruit trees, such rough and uneven cutting can result in severe injury to the tree thereby stunting either its growth or fruit production.
Secondly, the previously known trimming devices have either cut and dropped the branches and other foliage at the exact point where they were growing on the trees or caused the trimmings to be scattered and distributed over a wide area because of their own mechanical motion. As will be appreciated, this has caused great difficulty and expense in removing the trimmings and cuttings after such an operation.
Further, such prior known devices have been less useful for extremely large trees. Because of the bulk and mass of the mechanical elements required to produce the cutting action on such devices, the cutting arms thereon have been relatively short in order to maintain the supporting structure of the trimming apparatus at a reasonable size. Because of such considerations, it has been difficult to reach the tops and other more inaccessible areas of larger trees with such prior devices.
Also, several of the prior devices have included mechanical means for producing the cutting action of the various blades which limit the overall maneuverability and adaptability of the cutting arm. Thus, it has often been a problem to position the cutting arms on such prior devices in order to cut between the trees, around bottoms of trees, or in various positions in the top hemisphere of a tree.
Accordingly, there has been a need in the fruit and tree growing industry for a trimming apparatus which is highly maneuverable and therefore able to reach all areas of a tree, includes an effective, relatively lightweight cutting apparatus which will trim branches and foliage smoothly and evenly without injury to the tree, and yet which will not scatter the cuttings and trimmings over a wide area or leave the same on the viable tree foliage.